Protect Me From Myself

Book4 - Caught - Chapter1.

Welcome to book 4! This is Chance's story. I will prewarn you all that this one contains trigger warnings, talk of abuse, rape, and torture. I promise to post warnings ahead of those chapters containing such. There will be no graphic detailing, but it is suggested. Enjoy!

Paris

What am I doing here?

I've asked myself the same thing again and again for over a month now.

What am I doing here?

Hiding away from life, that's what I'm doing. Hiding away from the pain, when in reality, I could go to the ends of the earth, and I would never be able to hide from the pain inside of me. I thought coming here would be easy. It would put distance between us. But the farther I go, the more my heart calls to him.

How can that be when he hurt me the way he did?

How can I still love him this much?

No matter what I do, I just can't forget him. Sure, I've done everything I can to push him out of my head. But nothing I do stops me from thinking about him.

Moving from place to place is becoming hard, though I can't seem to settle down anywhere. I miss my family. I miss some of them.

Okay, I miss my sister. I didn't want to run from her, but there was just too much in my past that I needed to escape from. Not only the man I thought loved me but the horrors I suffered thanks to my... I don't even know who to blame.

I must admit, though, that living by the waterfront has its advantages. I love waking up each morning before the sun comes up and running along the front. It always clears my head some. And believe me, I need my head clearing.

I wonder if ECT would work?

That should help me forget.

In all seriousness, though, I have considered it. I would literally do anything to scrub my mind of the past. But the truth is, I'm chicken shi.t where pain is concerned. The pain in my heart is enough without shocking my temples like that.

Not that I truly remember anything before the past couple of years. Something terrible happened to me, which caused me to lose my memories.

How is it even right that I can't remember what I want to remember, yet what I want to forget I can't?

God, you have a funny way of punishing me!

There are days when I simply can't get out of bed. The pain tears through me, and I can't find a way out. Betrayal is the worst kind of hell. And he did betray me in more ways than one.

You can change your appearance all you like, your body, your face, your hair, even where you live, but you will never change the person you are inside.

And I think that was my downfall. I simply wasn't good enough for him. No matter what I did, it was never enough.

Why wasn't I enough for him?

Why can't I exchange these painful memories for some of the memories I lost after my accident?

Sods law, Paris.

After an eight-mile run, I'm finally doing my cool down. I've managed to gain five miles since I've been here. I'm generally bored after three miles and give up. I used to be so fuc.king lazy where exercise was concerned. But that changed a few months ago.

I never had the body men wanted. Being a size ten had its disadvantages. But it's a far cry from the size sixteen that I was not all that long ago.

That's why I was so shocked when Todd said he wanted me, that he couldn't get enough of me. We had some good times. Some perfect times. But we had more bad than good.

I tried so hard to make him happy. I stopped going out with my friends because he didn't like it. Much to their annoyance. Mainly because I couldn't tell them the real reasons why I couldn't party with them anymore.

I may have been a big girl, but I used to love hanging out with my friends. I may have had a hard time in school, always the brunt of everyone's jokes, but I was always fun-loving, happy, the girl most likely to make you laugh. That's what he said he liked about me.

Yeah. Sure he did.

Todd had me hooked on him so badly, so quickly, I thought I'd lost myself. I may have still seen my friends now and again, but he hated the fact. He said they were all slu.ts, and they'd turn me into one of them. They were nothing of the sort; they were just fun-loving. Like me once upon a time.

Whenever I pulled Todd up on his arrogance, he threatened to leave me. Telling me he didn't need me, I was the one who needed him. That nobody but he would ever want me in any way.

How could any man really find the fat girl attractive?

Shouldn't I feel lucky that a man like Todd would even look at me once, let alone twice?

As much as it hurt, he was right. After all, if I was so attractive, wouldn't other men have wanted to date me? But they didn't, and I knew if Todd left me, I'd be nothing but a fat girl wishing she could be like everyone else.

But Todd's constant picking at me, making me feel ugly, began turning me into someone I didn't recognize. If he felt me pulling away from him, which I started to do, he would tell me that I was worthless, fat, and pathetic. I would break down because I couldn't stop myself. I would beg Todd not to leave me, that I was sorry, and would try harder. Then, to pull me back in and take the sting out of his words, Todd would tell me something so sweet, like he loved me, that I was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen, and I was lost to him all over again.

But he wouldn't let me tell anybody we were dating. He said his ex was crazy, and she'd do something to hurt me or him if she found out, like keeping his son from him. I would never wish that to happen. He also told me it wouldn't be for long, that he would find a way to tell her. I believed him. I also believed Todd when he said he wanted to spend his life with me.

No matter what I found out about him, no matter how horrible others made him out to be, he always had an excuse, a reason why. And I always believed him.

Why did I do that?

Todd was the reason I lost weight, the reason I felt I needed to be anybody but the person I was. The worst of it was the fact I worked out so hard for him that I dropped eighty-four pounds of weight in eight months.

My mother always told me I was healthy at one hundred and ninety-six pounds.

What did she know? She was hardly coherent most of the time. Of course, I wasn't healthy. But I didn't have a horrible body shape; I just weighed a little too much.

My weight loss didn't go unnoticed, and my best friend soon hauled me to the doctor, who then told me that I had anorexia. I didn't feel like that was what was wrong with me; I just wanted to be what Todd wanted. The doctor told me if I lost any more weight, I'd be in danger of damaging myself internally.

Looking back at it now, I know that I was ill. I pushed myself too hard for a man who didn't appreciate me, a man who didn't even want me, dammit! A man who had no intention of ever really being mine. I was stupid to ever think a man like Todd Abbott would ever want a fat girl from Pacific Palisades.

I don't even know what the hell I was to him.

A pass time until he could have who he really wanted?

A babysitter for his son?

Because I sometimes got the feeling that that's all I was to him.

What am I talking about? Of course, that's all I was to him. He frigging married her without telling me, didn't he? The woman he swore was his ex. The woman he had me believe was insane and would hurt me; when all the fuc.king time he was still with her.

Bast.ard and a half!

I was so ill before I met Todd. I was sick after an accident that left me with no memories whatsoever, memories that come back to me a little at a time. I didn't even know who the hell I was when I met him. The only way I knew who my friends were was because they never gave up on me. They forever brought pictures of us around to try and jog my memory. It worked to a degree because I remembered little things.

However, I will never fully regain my memories. I will always have a jigsaw in my head with many pieces missing. Todd knew all about this, and he took full advantage of it.

I fuc.king hate him, and if I never see him again, it will be too soon! Any love inside me for Todd will disappear in time; I know it will, and I cannot wait.

“I see you running sometimes,”

Sh.it!

I almost had a heart attack! I didn't even sense anybody standing near me.

The guy is handsome in a hot-as-hell, long-haired, stubble-clad, muscle-ripped, surfer kind of way. He looks like he spends too much time in the sun; he's tanned like he's been sunbathing for three months straight, though that should not be confused with looking like an old suitcase. This man looks like he belongs on the cover of a magazine. His collar-length dark hair looks bleached in places by the sun.

He's not too bad to look at all. And if his washboard stomach, massive arms, and gorgeous pecs are anything to go by, then he is a fine specimen of a man. It kind of makes me wonder what the rest of him looks like.

He raises his eyebrow, catching me shamelessly checking him out.

Oh, come on, how could I not when he's standing there shirtless and wearing board shorts, low on his hips, showing off the V of his hips and stomach?

I'm still a woman and in no way blind! Though I imagine even blind people would find this man attractive.

He smirks, sending a flush of shame over my cheeks. “You okay there?”

“Um... Fine,” I stretch my arms above my head while twisting my hips. “You startled me. I didn't see you there.”

“Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. I was watching you run.”

“Must have been boring.”

Why is he looking at me like that?

He looks at me for a long moment, his eyes raking over my body.

What the hell is he looking at?

Has he never seen a woman in yoga pants and a t-shirt before?

My hair is falling out of my high ponytail due to running.

So again, what the hell is he looking at?

“Is there any particular reason you're looking at me like that?”

“Sorry,” He smirks again

“You keep saying that.”

“Wanna join me for breakfast?”

Where the hell did that come from?

“Why?”

“Because I'm asking you.”

“Did your friends put you up to it?” I ask as I point to the men down by the water. They're all looking at us. “Because I must impress that I got bored with that shi.t in high school, thank you very much.”

I'm used to this kind of thing: men asking me out as a joke. You get used to it when you're the fat chick. Even more so when your friends all look like Goddesses. I may no longer be overweight, but it's as if men can smell out the fact I used to be like sniffer dogs looking for clues.

He tips his head to the side, looking at me curiously. “Why would you say something like that?”

“Because you don't even know me. And in my experience, being the joke amongst men is something I'm very good at.”

“Are you being serious?”

“Very,” I pull my lips between my teeth and nod while walking backward. “It was nice to meet you anyway.”

“Wait,”

I don't wait; I turn and jog away.